Appeals Court Sides With Bush Obama Administration on Seizure of Terror Suspects

I had to catch myself for a second. Sides with the Obama administration on terrorist rendition?

The ruling is on "extraordinary rendition," of course. The policy for which leftists wanted Bush administration war crimes trials. And now we've got Barack Obama in power continuing the policy. Hey, way to "regain America's moral stature in the world"!

Okay, but according to the New York Times:

A sharply divided federal appeals court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit involving the Central Intelligence Agency’s practice of seizing terrorism suspects and transferring them to other countries for imprisonment and interrogation. The ruling handed a major victory to the Obama administration in its effort to advance a sweeping view of executive secrecy power.

Sweeping view of executive power? How many millions of words were written by leftists attacking proponents of that? Indeed, folks like John Yoo still can't get a break. And there's more:

The decision bolstered an array of ways in which the Obama administration has pressed forward with broad counter-terrorism policies after taking over from the Bush team, a degree of continuity that has departed from the expectations fostered by President Obama’s campaign rhetoric, which was often sharply critical of President Bush’s approach.

Among other policies, the Obama team has also placed a United States citizen on a targeted-killings list without a trial, blocked efforts by detainees in Afghanistan to bring habeas-corpus lawsuits challenging their indefinite imprisonment, and continued the C.I.A. rendition program – though the administration says it now takes greater safeguards to prevent detainees from being mistreated.

Okay, but I thought Obama once said of the Bush administration:

"Our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions," he said.

"In other words, we went off course."

Right.

He means our previous government, of course, even though he's now following the exact same policies. The ACLU is criticizing the wrong government as well, the one before the Obama administration:

Ben Wizner, a senior A.C.L.U. lawyer who argued the case before the appeals court, said the organization was deeply disappointed in the ruling.

“To this date, not a single victim of the Bush administration’s torture program has had his day in court,” Mr. Wizner said. “That makes this a sad day not only for the torture survivors who are seeking justice in this case, but for all Americans who care about the rule of law and our nation’s reputation in the world. If this decision stands, the United States will have closed it courts to torture victims while providing complete immunity to their torturers.”

Let's just chalk this up as one more reason why folks miss George W. Bush. Honesty. Integrity. Moral clarity. Yep, those are the things we had in the presidency before this administration. They were the right qualities --- and the right policies --- at the time. The courts think so, even if the neo-communists don't.